as, insulted
him when, in his disinterestedness, he tried to reason with me and
show me the way. He did not resent my conduct, he simply said that
some day I should receive the first-fruits of the Spirit--that those
who came to scoff sometimes remained to pray. There was a strange
magic in his words. They sank into my mind. But the loss of my
mother hit me most; and by degrees I was brought to see daylight.
Since then my one desire has been to hand on the true view to others,
and that is what I was trying to do to-day; though it is only lately
that I have preached hereabout. The first months of my ministry have
been spent in the North of England among strangers, where I preferred
to make my earliest clumsy attempts, so as to acquire courage before
undergoing that severest of all tests of one's sincerity, addressing
those who have known one, and have been one's companions in the days
of darkness. If you could only know, Tess, the pleasure of having a
good slap at yourself, I am sure--"

"Don't go on with it!" she cried passionately, as she turned away
from him to a stile by the wayside, on which she bent herself. "I
can't believe in such sudden things! I feel indignant with you for
talking to me like this, when you know--when you know what harm
you've done me! You, and those like you, take your fill of pleasure
on earth by making the life of such as me bitter and black with
sorrow; and then it is a fine thing, when you have had enough of
that, to think of securing your pleasure in heaven by becoming
converted! Out upon such--I don't believe in you--I hate it!"

"Tess," he insisted; "don't speak so! It came to me like a jolly new
idea! And you don't believe me? What don't you believe?"

"Your conversion. Your scheme of religion."

"Why?"

She dropped her voice. "Because a better man than you does not
believe in such."

"What a woman's reason! Who is this better man?"

"I cannot tell you."

"Well," he declared, a resentment beneath his words seeming ready to
spring out at a moment's notice, "God forbid that I should say I am
a good man--and you know I don't say any such thing. I am new to
goodness, truly; but newcomers see furthest sometimes."

"Yes," she replied sadly. "But I cannot believe in your conversion
to a new spirit. Such flashes as you feel, Alec, I fear don't last!"

Thus speaking she turned from the stile over which she had been
leaning, and faced him; whereupon his eyes, fallin